DavidKreutzer

Subject Expert

Subject Expert, Royalty Policy Committee

David Kreutzer is a “subject expert” representing the “public interest” on the Planning, Analysis and Competitiveness subcommittee of the Department of Interior’s Royalty Policy Committee (RPC). The RPC advises Secretary Zinke “on policy and strategies to improve management of the multi-billion dollar, federal and American Indian mineral revenue program.” As a subject expert, Kreutzer “will not be able to vote on matters before the full committee.”

Climate-change skeptic and land transfer advocate David Kreutzer began his career as an economics professor, teaching first at Ohio University from 1981 to 1984 and then at James Madison University from 1984 to 2007. Next, from 2007 to 2008, Kreutzer worked at Berman and Company, a PR firm that “runs two-dozen industry front groups whose raison d’être is to block or weaken consumer, environmental and workplace safeguards.” Kreutzer left Berman and Company for the Koch-funded Heritage Foundation, where he still works. While at Heritage, Kreutzer has espoused a variety of anti-public lands stances, including reversing federal regulations on fracking, allowing states to manage energy permitting on federal lands, and encouraging Congress to “explore ways to sell federal lands to states and private individuals.” In 2016, Kreutzer took a brief stint from Heritage to serve on Donald Trump’s EPA landing team, and stayed on working at EPA through March 2017. While working on the landing team, Kreutzer “played an important role in shaping and writing” the executive order Trump issued on energy policy that “dismantled a White House working group on the social cost of carbon.”

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David Kreutzer has advocated giving states control over permitting on federal land and selling federal lands to the states.

David Kreutzer, in 2016, co-authored a Heritage Foundation paper titled “Time to Unlock America’s Vast Oil and Gas Resources.” Among other points, the paper argued that Congress and the next administration should: “open access to energy exploration of federal waters and lands,” “prevent and reverse federal regulations on fracking,” and “allow states to manage energy development.” [Kevin Dayaratna, David Kreutzer and Nicolas Loris, “Time to Unlock America’s Vast Oil and Gas Resources,” Heritage Foundation, 09/01/16]

In the paper, Kreutzer and his co-authors argued, “Permitting fracking on federally owned land will result in even more oil and gas extraction and create jobs in areas that would otherwise not see such economic growth. Congress should explore ways to sell federal lands to states and private individuals who are in a better position to reap the benefits from energy production while protecting the environment. Short of that, however, Congress should grant authority to states for environmental review and permitting of energy projects on federal lands within their borders.” [Kevin Dayaratna, David Kreutzer and Nicolas Loris, “Time to Unlock America’s Vast Oil and Gas Resources,” Heritage Foundation, 09/01/16]

Kreutzer has argued that “the ’97 percent’ claim — the widely cited idea that about 97 percent of all scientists agree on the existence and science behind anthropogenic climate change — is a myth propagated by a single faulty study published in 2013.” [Chelsea Harvey, “These are the climate myths guiding Trump’s EPA team,” Washington Post, 12/13/16]

Kreutzer “has pressed for recalculating the ‘social cost of carbon,’ a metric that the Obama administration had used to assess the negative impacts of climate change,” in a way that “would make it harder to justify action to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.” [Steven Mufson, Juliet Eilperin, and Chris Mooney, “A second climate-change skeptic is leaving the EPA and will return to Heritage,” Washington Post, 03/30/17]

While working on Donald Trump’s EPA landing team, Kreutzer “played an important role in shaping and writing” the executive order Donald Trump issued on energy policy that “dismantled a White House working group on the social cost of carbon and rescinded a variety of Obama-era technical documents on the matter.” [Steven Mufson, Juliet Eilperin, and Chris Mooney, “A second climate-change skeptic is leaving the EPA and will return to Heritage,” Washington Post, 03/30/17]